He was usually so quiet that she was startled at this new tone.
“Don’t,” she said. “Hush! We have only just found out. He went away because he couldn’t bear his own happiness. Pete—” She felt for him and her hand touched his cheek. “Oh, Pete, your face is wet. You’re crying.”
“No, I’m not,” he denied evenly. “It was melting from the roof when I came in.”
She sighed. “You are so strange, Pete. Will you let me kiss you now—since you are going to be my big little brother?”
“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t.”
She laughed and crooked her arm about his neck, forcing his face down to hers. His lips were hard and cool.
The face that Sylvie imagined a boy’s face, shy and blushing, half frightened, half cross, perhaps a trifle pleased, was so white and patient a face in its misery that her blind tenderness seemed almost like an intentional cruelty. It was an intensity of feeling almost palpable, but Sylvie’s mouth remained unburnt, though it removed itself with a pathetic little twist of disappointment.
“You don’t need to say anything,” she said, “You’ve shown me how you feel. You can’t like me. You are sorry I came. And I want so dreadfully for some one just now to talk to—to help me, to understand. It’s all dark and wonderful and frightening. I wish I had a brother—”
She bent her face to her knees and began to cry simply and passionately. At that Pete found it easy to forget himself. He put his arm very carefully about her, laying one of his hands on her bent head and stroking her hair.
“You have a brother,” he said. “Right here.”